Trundling across Poland’s snowy steppes on the train from Warsaw to Krakow yesterday, I missed the Inauguration.

As for George W Bush, Christopher Hitchens’ assessment is good enough for me:

… it is the events of Sept. 11, 2001, that explain the transformation of George Bush from a rather lazy small-government conservative into an interventionist, in almost every sense, politician.

… The obvious failures—in particular the increasing arrogance and insanity of the dictatorships of Iran and North Korea – are at least failures in their own terms: failure to live up to the original rhetoric and failure to mesh human rights imperatives with geo-strategic and security ones. Again, it’s not clear to me how any alternative administration would have behaved.

And the collapse of our financial system has its roots in a long-ago attempt, not disgraceful in and of itself, to put home ownership within reach even of the least affluent. So the old question "compared to what?" does not allow too much glibness.

Inescapable as it is, "compared to what?" isn’t much of a defense. And nor has this column been intended exactly as a defense, either. It’s just that there’s an element of hubris in all this current hope-mongering…

So, welcome then, President Obama.

I like the sense he conveys of an intelligent awareness of some philosphical problems, such as the ghastly results of ‘liberal’ social policies on the African-American community in general and the male part of that community in particular. ‘Smart’ diplomacy sounds good to me. As long as it is smart.

But a massive contribution to the current global mess has been an unhealthy alliance between Big Money and Big Government, and for years the US Democratic Party has been even more stupid and profligate in creating the conditions for that than the Republicans – President Bush’s main policy failure lies in not confronting it.

So if Obama is to achieve better outcomes on Responsibility, he must come to terms not only with the fiendishly difficult policy issues but also with the deepest instincts and greedy if not corrupt impulses of his own party.

Maybe a crisis makes it easier to to do that. If he realises that he has to do it, and in fact has the strength to be a true leader.

But that’s for tomorrow.

For now as a non US citizen I express my humble and hearty gratitude to the USA for showing the world once again how to deal with powerful leaders. Compare what happened yesterday in Washington with the political wreckage in Zimbabwe, Cuba, N Korea, China, most of the Arab world, Russia and so on.

A leader with huge power gracefully accepted that the end of his rule had come and in a solemn yet light-touch ceremony handed over power to a new man, duly elected to replace him. He now in turn has at most some 416 weeks to lead the United States before he steps down.

This is Civilisation. Playing by the rules, and not making sneaky selfish manoeuvres to change them. A fresh start. Which creates the conditions for some positive Change to complement all that Hope.

Thanks again America.